Anglia105E

After checking that the boot / trunk lid can be raised to the fully open position, the spare wheel and tyre was mounted onto the chassis floor. The rear bumper fits between the body and the chassis at a later stage . . . Then I have measured, drawn and cut out the panel that fits immediately behind the spare wheel. One of the photos below shows this panel mounted in white on a previous build, which is 225 ALG. The panel has been given a coat of black permanent marker, to give it the black colour. The same permanent marker was applied to the lower edge of the rear body, after this was sanded down to remove a rough imperfection. The spare wheel panel was fabricated from thin white card . . . David

All of the previous eight Sliver Cloud builds have had the ' cocktail stick ' boot lid hinge pin modification fitted, so there is no part included in any of the kits to achieve this . . . My first use of a cotton bud stalk has provided a much better hinge pin action, as it is a tighter fit. Not yet sure what to do about those nasty boot lid dimples . . . Something like melted black plastic could have been an option in the past, but that process would give off unpleasant fumes, even in a very small quantity . . . David W.

I think the gold and the turquoise has worked quite well David . . . You are almost there, so the end is in sight . . . Soldier on . . . David W.

Thanks for the amusing recipe Steve . . . You have a way with words ! . . . Something did occur to me last night, the filler is white in colour, so even when it has dried and I sand the surface smooth, I cannot polish the black plastic of the trunk lid. One idea would be to mix Vallejo Gloss Black acrylic with the filler before applying the mix to the dimples, but not sure if that method would work . . . Every single one of these boot / trunk lid parts in these Silver Cloud kits has the two dimples in exactly the same place . . . David

During this afternoon, I fitted the Entex boot lid to the Entex body shell, which seems to be a nice close fit. However, there are two dimples immediately above the two boot lid hinges that are underneath . . . Although I am reluctant to use Mr White Putty R filler, this may the only way to deal those unsightly dimples. For the first time I decided to use a short length of cotton bud stalk for the boot lid hinge mechanism, rather than the usual cocktail stick. All of my previous Silver Cloud builds have a short length of cocktail stick wedged between the struts inside the body shell. The two hooks of the boot lid hinges fit tightly over the makeshift hinge bar . . . The cotton bud stalk has a slightly larger diameter than the cocktail stick, and this actually works much better I have realised. No glue of any kind is required for the boot lid mounting. The Entex chassis, along with the chrome plastic axles, road wheels and tyres have been mated up with the body, and also the rear bumper. All of these parts are simply test fitted at this stage . . . The axles are very loose within their mounting holes, and the wheels are also loose on the axles, so this needs to be addressed later. I have emailed the RROC in North America, asking them for a chassis number for the OVD 777 car, if they have the car listed on their database. The RREC in England do not have any records for the car on their database. I have attached a selection of photos to the email message for the RROC, one of which shows both the UK registration number plate, as well as the Texas license plate also . . . David

That particular kit that you had to work with is probably one of the worst examples of this defect that I have seen . The area of the bodywork at the join between fender, door and windshield must have been difficult to cast from the tooling that was available to companies such as Minicraft, Revell, Academy, Entex, Masterkit and Hubley, as the moulds were well past their sell by date . . . Now that I am not able to use filler and sanding techniques, I feel so lucky to have picked up a kit that does not require this type of work in that area. David W.

Many thanks for your comment Jose . . . The work proceeds at a steady pace ! David

The first photo in the following series of photos shows a mockup of the car on wheels, but this is the test model, so not the actual build model. You can see how well the Silver Cloud presents itself in terms of proportions and stance . . . This afternoon I have polished the driver's side of the body, including front and rear wings and front and rear doors. The resulting shine continues to impress me, and by the time the window glass and BMF have been added later this model car should have a realistic appearance . . . Having contacted the RREC, Rolls-Royce Enthusiast's Club, as an ex-member they have informed me that the real car in New York, USA does not appear on their extensive database. They have no data for the UK registration plate OVD 777, but the lady at the RREC is going to forward my enquiry to the Silver Cloud registrar. Maybe I should contact the RROC, which is the Rolls-Royce Owner's Club of North America, located in Mechanics burg, PA, to see if they have any record of this Silver Cloud that is for sale in New York . . . David

Good idea to copy those photos for your own reference. When I was around the age of 17 - 20, I used to visit various different scrapyards with my Dad, usually on Sundays I seem to remember . . . We would rummage among the piled up scrap cars and unbolt any useful parts for my Ford Anglia 105E, and also my Dad's Ford Cortina MK 1 . . . Once you had gathered your parts together, you would take them to a sort of ramshackle broken down hut or shed, where a man would ask for a few pounds for the whole lot. Very cheap, and the parts would keep both of our cars running nicely . . . Those were the days eh David ? The correct sized mascots were resin cast for me by a model building friend who sadly passed away recently, and I only have two of them remaining. The Franklin Mint Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I does have the correct sized radiator grille mascot in metal at 1:24 scale, but every single car that I purchased on Ebay had the mascot missing . . . I can only assume that the sellers would remove the part before offering the model car for sale. David W.

Today I set about polishing the roof panel area of the Entex body . . . Using the proven method ( Eco-Friendly ) baking soda toothpaste, distilled malt vinegar, and micro fibre cloth, the resulting mirror finish of the black plastic was most satisfying. One of the following photos shows a clear reflection of myself holding the camera as I photograph the roof of the model car . . . The oversized Spirit of Ecstasy radiator grill mascot was removed, and this had only been pushed in, so not glued. One photo below shows the difference in size between the Minicraft mascot in the centre of the three mascots, and the two correctly sized 1:24 scale mascots . . . I made a point of examining the area of the body where the wings meet the doors at the lower corner of the windshield, and I can confirm that there is no work required in these two areas. The casting is surprisingly good, compared to some examples that I have seen, both in my collection and in online images . . . David

Oh I see . . . We do have charity shops, which is where people bring stuff in for free that they no longer want and the charity shops sell the items quite cheaply. Similar idea to Goodwill maybe . . . David

I hadn't heard of Goodwill here in UK, but then if they don't ship outside the US that is not al that surprising . . . thanks. David

I do agree with your view Jose, and it is true that there are more dealers on Ebay now than private sellers . . . You can sometimes find genuine bargains, but it is becoming more difficult. David

This will be a very interesting project Pico . . . The resin body kits from Air Trax in Finland are excellent, and worth the extra money to get them I think . . . David

I shall have a second look at the transition between the wings and doors, but at first glance I did not see any work to do in that area. I do remember how this area of the bodywork gave you a lot of pain . . . I haven't purchased or built a Hubley kit, although I would like to at some stage. The Hubley promo that I have is a nice model actually, with very clean lines and I like the blue plastic too. The promo was ready built, and is dated 1959 or 1960 . . . Many of the Minicraft kits are later versions, but still using the old tooling. Curiously, this Entex kit has the chromed parts that you would find inside a Minicraft kit, and yet the tyres are the rubber type as you would find inside the Revell kit . . . The axles are plastic in this Entex kit, but some kits do contain the metal axles, which I prefer. I may cut some lengths of brass rod for my axles, but that will present the problem of using glue to mount the styrene wheels onto the metal axles. What did you think of the OVD 777 car at the New York dealer's for sale website? Very sad to see any Rolls-Royce in such a neglected state, but someone will restore that once fine motor car. I just hope they do it sympathetically . . . In the past I would have been able to source the original chassis number for that UK registration plate, but now I cannot as no longer an RREC member. They will not divulge such information from their wonderful database if you are not a fully paid up member of the RREC . . . I seem to remember the membership was around £90.00 GBP per year ( US $. 122.00 ) David W.

Nice to hear from you Steve . . . I was trying to come up with a name for my ' new ' approach to model car building, and I was thinking along the lines of something like Eco-Friendly model building, but your suggestion has a pleasant ring to it , ' Ecology Based Model Building ' . . . Yes, I like that . . . Certainly, I feel like I am some sort of pioneer for non / low toxic modelling, so I need to publish the results of my experiments, both successful and unsuccessful. This has probably all been done before, as I am sure that model builders who have been far more professional than myself must have tried such ideas . . . Two or three years ago, I could browse Ebay any day of the week, and there would be various Minicraft and Revell kits of the Silver Cloud listed at sensible prices. Also, there would be Entex versions of the kit, as well as Masterkit and Hubley, but these days there are none at all really. I am aware of three Hubley kits being listed in France, which have been on Ebay for around three years now. During all that time the sellers have not reduced their high prices, and they have not added ' Make Offer ' to their ' Buy it Now ' option . . . The Hubley kits are nicely presented in their sealed boxes and pristine condition, but they are moulded in grey plastic and the shipping costs are stupidly high, considering France is not that far away from UK . . . I am wanting black plastic for the body parts, so that I can polish rather than paint, so the grey plastic is not an option for me right now. Thanks again Steve for taking an interest in my current topic, and hopefully this Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud model will turn out well in the end . . . David

The Entex version of the 1:24 scale Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II kit was delivered early this morning, having taken five days by transport from the Netherlands to England . . . As always, I carefully set about the unboxing and photographed every stage of the process. This kit is complete, apart from two items that were missing, the steering wheel and the instruction sheet. It would have been nice to have an instruction sheet, even though I don't need to refer to it. I do have the instruction sheets for the Minicraft and Revell versions of this kit . . . The kit box was not sealed, and a previous owner had glued the oversized Spirit of Ecstasy to the top of the radiator grille, as well as the front bumper that was glued to the front lower edge of the body. The V8 engine was clipped in place, but not glued, and all the other parts were loose in the box, no sprues. The window glass parts were still inside a sealed clear plastic bag . . . Generally I am happy with my purchase, both in terms of price and condition. Now that I have all the parts spread out before me on the table, I can decide which of those parts to use for this build. The roof panel of the Entex body shell is completely free of scratches, so this one has a better surface than the test model that I have been working on recently. To my surprise, and David G. will find this interesting, the areas of the front wings / fenders immediately in front of the windscreen lower corners, are not the usual mess that you find with these Silver Cloud kits . . . It will not be be necessary to use filler and sanding to correct this problem, which is good. David

You were indeed the Forum member that I was referring to David G. . . . That Ford GT of yours looks really good, and the pale blue colour of the plastic bodywork is way better than any painting could achieve in my view . . . We refer this to iconic car as the Ford GT40 here in England, but I think over in the US you guys are more likely to call the car a Ford GT, would that be correct, or are they two different cars? The only Entex kit of the Silver Cloud in 1:24 scale available on the planet arrived at my door by Royal Mail this morning . . . The Ebay seller was a lady in Holland, and she appears to be a registered charity ( Amnesty International ) which explains why she was very likely not aware of this kit's rare value. Apart from the steering wheel and the instruction sheet being missing from the box, the kit is complete and in good condition. Most important of all, as far as I am concerned, there are 5 wheels and 4 tyres in the box, which I don't have . . . I do have 3 tyres, but no wheels. The Minicraft tyres are very plastic like, whereas the Revell and Entex tyres are rubber material . . . much nicer. David W.

Well that is fascinating indeed John . . . The chassis number of all Rolls-Royce motor cars produced pre-war, and during the 1940's - 1960's especially, is more important than the registration number plate. The Rolls-Royce factory people identify each motor car by it's chassis number. As you can see from one of my photos, the NY dealer states that 22308 is not the actual VIN number . . . VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number, but Rolls-Royce cars have a Chassis Number, which would be something like SDD312 or similar . . . A car exported to Canada, or the US would have a letter ' L ' at the front, e.g. LSDD350 . Whoever takes on that restoration project has bought themselves a good long term investment, but they will need a huge amount of money to bring the car back to it's former glory, and probably at least one year to carry out the work properly, maybe two years . . . All of my scale model Silver Cloud cars, and the Phantom I, II and III cars have an actual registration number that belongs to a real car, and each model has the original RR chassis number too . . . So sad to see such a fine motor car as the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud reduced to such a mess, but many of them have been restored to as new condition by some dedicated restorers and engineers . . . When I was a member of the RREC, which is the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club that is truly International and has it's HQ in England, I used to be able to access their massive database online and look up chassis numbers, paint codes, registration numbers and owners names, but I can't do that now as I am no longer a member of the RREC . . . They always held an Annual Rally at Burghley House every year in June, but now that has moved over to somewhere in Europe. David

Cheers Les . . . I would accept your offer to 3D print my Rolls-Royce 6 cylinder engine, and I am happy to pay you for your time and materials of course. I do have the original file, which is in .STL format and has had some errors corrected by Shapeways before they printed three engines for me. Your testing with the phone tape has worked really well on those parts in your photos, and I am happy to report that the PVA bonding used for styrene to styrene also works very well, much to my surprise . . . David

Thank you for your interesting response Kurt . . . As other MCM Forum members have noticed, the V8 engine supplied with the Minicraft and Revell kits of the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II is an extremely basic representation of that engine, but quite apart from that observation, I am building a Silver Cloud I as usual. The motor cars built between 1955 and 1959 all had the 6 cylinder inline engine, which is precisely what my 3D printed engine represents . . . I designed the 1:24 scale engine using FreeCAD software, and Shapeways kindly printed three of the engines for me. Two of those engines are already installed in two of my eight Silver Cloud builds, and this third engine is the only one that I have remaining. Shapeways used to ship items to me here in the UK from the Netherlands, using the excellent courier service provided by UPS, those dark brown and gold delivery trucks . . . Shapeways have actually resurfaced and rebranded recently, despite having closed down their business several years ago. However, they no longer provide their print on demand service as they used to, and in fact they no longer have any of the files that were owned by customers such as myself. This means that I cannot order further copies of my engine from Shapeways because they have somehow deleted thousands of customer design files when they closed the business, and to rub salt into the wound they do not offer the same service under the new business model . . . At the height of their success worldwide, Shapeways presented us with a vast array of models in all scales and materials, whereby you anyone could select a model, which could be a car part or a figure, and have it 3D printed by Shapewaays, shipped to a customer at a very reasonable price and even the customer support was extremely good. Sadly, that is all gone. I no longer have a 3D printer of my own, so I cannot simply print the engine model myself unfortunately . . . David

Thank you John . . . Yes, that is my thought process precisely. I thought maybe the PVA would cover the shiny black plastic seats, and therefore make it easier for the water based emulsion paint to go on with better coverage. Actually, the emulsion paint on the front seats has covered well, even without any PVA underneath. This paint is Elle by Crown Open Water, which is a nice pale blue colour . . . It will be necessary to carry out some polishing on the upholstery of the seats, in order to remove the rough finish, but I can use the toothpaste and vinegar mix to do this . . . I was searching online yesterday to find an actual car on which to base my model, which is something that I always do with every Silver Cloud model car that I build . . . The car is being sold by a dealer in NY, USA and this motor car requires a full and expensive restoration. It has a UK registration plate of OVD 777 and also a Texas registration plate as well. The car is finished in black with grey upholstery, and was first registered in 1957, as a RHD car which is exactly what I need . . . As part of the restoration, I can re-upholster my model in pale blue leather instead of the original grey. I always like to have a genuine and original British number plate on my Silver Clouds, so this one is perfect . . . Here are seven photos of the car in New York . . . David

I am able to report some good progress over the past two days . . . The interior seating tub has received a coating of water based emulsion paint, which has been applied over dried PVA glue for the rear seat, and then directly onto the bare plastic for the front seat . . . This experimental testing is not yet complete. Now for the interesting part . . . In order to fully test the bonding strength of PVA glue with regard to holding a styrene part to a styrene part, I have mounted the radiator grille shell onto the front end of the body shell. Not only does the PVA have to hold the radiator grille shell in place, but also this shell part has to hold the two bonnet panels in place, leaving them free to hinge open and closed . . . These hood panels have a small pin at the front edge, as well as another small pin at the rear edge of the panel. Following a 21 hour period of setting, the PVA glue is holding the radiator grille shell and the hinged hood panels firmly and securely. The next stage in the glue testing will be to examine how much force, or how little force is required to lever apart the grille shell from the body . . . This washable PVA glue is child friendly, and was produced by Ryman's and a good sized bottle did not cost much, around three years ago. Sadly, this product is no longer supplied by Ryman's, and is not available on the shelves of their stores . . . During the past three years I have used quite a lot of this glue, particularly while building the bungalow in the W.I.P. Dioramas section of this forum, and there is a substantial amount of glue remaining in the bottle . . . The interior seating tub part of this kit has been clipped into place, inside the body, and the photos look good already . . . I am expecting the Entex kit of the Silver Cloud to be delivered next Monday from the Netherlands, all being well . . . David

Thank you kindly Trevor . . . Yes, I shall have a think about Micro Mesh pads, and they would be a good first step when used wet . . . On the roof of this test body there are two minor scratches which haven't polished out during the first application of toothpaste, but these tiny scratches might be removed with a second or third polishing session . . . David

Thanks John . . . This gives me the confidence that I needed to polish up the entire body shell using this method . . . David